☐ Check whether the Universal Affordability Preference applies to you

City of Yes for Housing Opportunity (passed December 2024) created an as-of-right 20% floor-area bonus in R6 through R10 districts for buildings that dedicate the added space to permanently affordable units, averaging around 60% AMI. This one requires no separate rezoning — if your lot sits in an eligible district, it's usable today.

☐ Check whether your parking requirement disappeared

Parking mandates were eliminated citywide for accessory dwelling units, conversions, and transit-oriented development, and fully eliminated in most high-transit parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Freeing a lot from a parking requirement can meaningfully increase usable buildable area on a tight site.

☐ Check whether your building now qualifies for conversion

Office and commercial conversion eligibility expanded citywide to buildings that existed as of December 31, 1990 — a much more permissive cutoff than before. See our 467-m guide if this applies to you.

☐ Check whether the FAR cap repeal reaches your site — carefully

In 2024, the state repealed the old 12.0 FAR ceiling on residential buildings, and City of Yes created two new high-density districts to use that headroom: R11 (FAR up to 15) and R12 (FAR up to 18). The catch: these districts aren't mapped anywhere by default. They only apply where a separate, subsequent rezoning action specifically maps them onto a site, and only within Mandatory Inclusionary Housing areas. Don't assume your Manhattan site jumped to FAR 15 without confirming it was actually included in an adopted plan.

☐ Check whether you're inside one of the five major 2024–2025 rezonings

  • Bronx Metro-North Station Area Plan — approved August 2024, ~7,000 homes enabled near four new stations
  • Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, Brooklyn — approved May 2025, ~4,600 homes across Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and Bed-Stuy
  • Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan, Manhattan — approved August 2025, 42 blocks converted from manufacturing-only to mixed-use
  • Jamaica Neighborhood Plan, Queens — approved October 2025, the area's largest rezoning in 20+ years
  • OneLIC, Long Island City, Queens — approved November 2025, ~14,700–15,000 homes enabled

Together these five plans add capacity for more than 50,000 units. If your lot sits in or near any of them, your permitted density may have changed independent of anything citywide.

☐ Actually look it up

Don't guess — check:

  • ZoLa (zola.planning.nyc.gov) — current zoning, FAR, and lot data by address
  • ZAP (zap.planning.nyc.gov) — status of active rezoning applications
  • NYC Rezoning Commitments Tracker — neighborhood-level rezoning progress

What to Do With a "Yes"

Checking a box on this list doesn't tell you a dollar figure — it tells you it's worth running one. More FAR means more buildable square footage, which flows directly into land value. Our guide on how land value gets calculated shows exactly how that translates into a number.